Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 201: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Story of William Hyde suddenly, along the bank nearest to me, a movement in those growths. I kept my eyes upon that right-hand bank as we ran along. Andright along with us it went—that movement in the growths. There was a swish from the ferns, a pull on a creeper where others close at hand were loose and still, and a swaying of branches here, then immediately ahead, and all to the soft accompaniment of rust- ling leaves and lianas. I could see no one. The moonbeams, striking straight down into the path, sil- vered those trees and growths; but still, so thick they were and so entangled that I could see no one. And yet, not three feet from our heads, running beside us with a swiftness marvelous in that network of huge roots and lush, there was, I knew, some one. For once [ heard a twig snap as under the foot of some prowling animal, and once again a pebble, dislodged from the edge of the bank, rolled down with a gathering of earth to my very feet. “Some Poonan!” I thought in a kind of flurry. “Some Poonan has caught up with us!” A pull on my arm caused me to remove my eyes from that right-hand bank and look around, hastily, at my wife. But she was not looking at that right-hand bank— the movement along that bank had stopped abruptly, anyhow; as if that prowler in the night had paused with us. She was looking straight ahead, and her eyes were dilated as with some great and horrid surprise. T looked ahead. And ahead, gaping black in the moonlight, I saw the mouth of that tunnel through the rock and lava-wall of the crater. And standing directly before that gaping black hole, that tawny bespot- ted leopard-skin outlining her feline form I saw Lip-Plak-Tengega, the High Priestess! . Even as I saw her her slant eyes met mine with a flaming, triumphant look. ““Ahe!” she cried loudly. ‘“Not the Man- Child, not our King, only a white man! Only a white man, striving to steal the Green, Green God, striving to save his cow- ardly neck!’’ Her voice was so loud it was like a signal to that mob of Poonan behind us. ‘And I felt thereat that she thought to stop us now —to stop us even at that threshold of our escape. I freshened my grip upon my re- volver and, my body tensed, took a step forward toward her. 199 “Out of my way!” I shouted boldly. “Out of my way, Lip-Plak-Tengga. You can never stop us now!” But that lone figure in the clinging leop- ard-skin did not move. “Only a white man!”’ she cried out again. “Not the Man-Child, not our King, only a white man!” Sure then her words were a signal, drag- ging Belun-Mea Poa-Poa by the hand, I leaped forward. ‘“‘Then on your own head be it!” I shouted madly, and I raised my revolver. But a sudden unaccountable move upon her part caused my finger to hesitate even as it tightened upon the trigger. For, alto- gether suddenly, she outstretched both hands toward the right-hand bank and pleadingly, yet shrilly, she called: “Man! Man!” Only there was this difference: She called the Poonan word for man—‘‘Orang!/ Orang!l’’ And from that, and that alone, I should have known what manner of man she was calling. But I did not know. I swung ’round. A tremendous crackling and rending of growths came from behind and above me. I knew that some one on the right-hand | bank was breaking a way through. And then I heard a cry from my wife, a terrible cry: “The Monster Man! It’s the Monster Man!’ And she tore her hand from my hand, and the Green, Green God in her arms, clutched to her fear-chilled breasts, she went running back along the sunken path—back the very way we had come. “T return the God!” she cried. ‘‘Look, Lip-Plak-Tengga—I return the God! Spare us! Oh, spare us! Spare us—from the Monster Man!” I started after her, calling her back. “Stop!” I shouted, shocked, almost unbe- lieving. ‘Stop, or everything is lost!” But she continued on, continued running back into the Jallan Batoe. She knew. Everything was lost. And now I knew. For now in the path before me, between Belun-Mea Poa-Poa and me, uprose on his huge legs to dispute that path with me—the Monster Man! He had leaped down from that right-hand bank. And he was a monster man. But not a negro, not a monstrosity of a black. He was a man of the jungle, a huge orang- outang, a gigantic, colossal ape! Ecomicboo (Eo)